Domestic dogs confined together, as in shelters, boarding kennels, or breeding facilities, are often affected with acute respiratory infections (kennel cough). The disease is transmitted rapidly and is difficult to eliminate as new animals are continually introduced. A spectrum of agents may produce a complex syndrome of multiple and sequentially overlapping infections making diagnosis and treatment difficult. Affected dogs have clinical signs ranging from mild dry cough and nasal discharge to pneumonia and death in severe cases. Cats are also infected with various agents that produce respiratory distress of varying degrees of severity. The same or similar viruses may also infect humans. Thus, there is an ongoing and unmet need to identify the agents that infect a variety of mammals and to develop compositions and methods for use in diagnosis, prophylaxis and/or therapy for such infections. The present invention meets these needs.